{
  "url": "https://openlegislation.uk/national-health-service-pharmaceutical-and-local-pharmaceutical-services-amendment-and-transitional-provision-regulations-2014/note",
  "json_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/national-health-service-pharmaceutical-and-local-pharmaceutical-services-amendment-and-transitional-provision-regulations-2014/note.json",
  "legislation": "uksi/2014/417",
  "legislation_title": "The National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) (Amendment and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2014",
  "legislation_url": "https://openlegislation.uk/national-health-service-pharmaceutical-and-local-pharmaceutical-services-amendment-and-transitional-provision-regulations-2014",
  "path": "note",
  "kind": "note",
  "number": null,
  "heading": "Explanatory note",
  "text": "(This note is not part of the Regulations)\nThese Regulations amend the National Health Service (Pharmaceutical and Local Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2013 (“the 2013 Regulations”). The 2013 Regulations govern the arrangements, in England, for the provision of pharmaceutical services and local pharmaceutical services (apart from the terms of service of piloted services) under Part 7 of the National Health Service Act 2006.\nRegulations 3, 4, 5 and 7 restructure regulations 13(1), 15(1), 17(1) and 20(1) of the 2013 Regulations, which relate to pharmaceutical list applications in respect of needs for, or improvements or better access to, pharmaceutical services (or to pharmaceutical services of a specified type) which are identified in pharmaceutical needs assessments (“PNAs”). Pharmaceutical lists are lists of permitted providers of pharmaceutical services held by the National Health Service Commissioning Board (“NHSCB”) and PNAs are assessments of pharmaceutical services provision, including of potential gaps in service provision, produced by the Health and Wellbeing Boards of local authorities. The changes clarify the drafting, with no intended substantive effect.\nRegulation 6 amends regulation 18 of the 2013 Regulations, which relates to pharmaceutical list applications where the applicant is seeking to offer what were unforeseen benefits at the time the relevant PNA was produced. The 2013 Regulations identify three desirable characteristics of such applications and the amendment makes it clear that the list of these three is disjunctive, so that the NHSCB needs only to have particular regard to the desirability of one of these three when considering an unforeseen benefits application.\nPharmaceutical list applications that offer either benefits identified in a PNA or unforeseen benefits are together known as “routine applications”. Pharmaceutical list applications that offer neither of these types of benefit generally have to be refused by the NHSCB, but there are a number of types of “excepted application” which can be granted even if they do not offer these types of benefit, one of which is applications for relocations that do not result in significant change to pharmaceutical services provision locally. Regulation 8(a) and (b) amend the threshold criteria in regulation 24 of the 2013 Regulations for granting these applications so that the requirement is that the NHSCB is not of the opinion that granting the application would cause significant detriment to proper planning, rather than the NHSCB positively needing to satisfy itself that granting the application would not cause significant detriment to proper planning.\nThe threshold criteria for this type of relocation application are also changed so that, if the relocation is of distance selling premises (typically, internet pharmacies), the NHSCB must be satisfied that the general conditions that apply for the granting of new distance selling premises applications also apply to the grant of applications for relocations of distance selling premises that do not result in significant change to pharmaceutical services provision locally (regulation 8(c)).\nChange of ownership applications are another type of “excepted application”, and regulation 9(b) amends the threshold criteria in regulation 26 of the 2013 Regulations for granting these applications (which may sometimes be combined with a relocation application) so that if the application relates to distance selling premises, the NHSCB must be satisfied that the general conditions that apply to the grant of new distance selling premises applications also apply to the grant of change of ownership applications for distance selling premises.\nThe changes in regulation 8(c) and 9(b) are also reflected in a change to regulation 64 of the 2013 Regulations, which sets the conditions of entry in pharmaceutical lists for distance selling premises. The change is to make sure that, going forward, the specific conditions of entry that apply to distance selling premises apply to all distance selling premises, not simply those distance selling premises that have resulted from the grant of an application pursuant regulation 25 of the 2013 Regulations and the provisions that preceded it (regulation 15).\nIt is possible, however, that prior to 1st April 2014, distance selling premises may have relocated, or been given permission to relocate, under the previous arrangements to the same site as a provider of primary medical services with a patient list. A transitional provision is included in these Regulations so that, if that has indeed happened, the term of service that would prevent the distance selling premises being on the same site as a provider of primary medical services with a patient list is disapplied (regulation 16).\nSome pharmaceutical list applications have needed to be refused if the proposed premises were part of the same site as the premises of an existing provider of pharmaceutical services, and regulation 10 amends regulation 31 of the 2013 Regulations so that this restriction now applies to all types of pharmaceutical list applications.\nApplications for new NHS chemist premises sometimes include a best estimate of where the new premises are to be located, rather than an exact location, and in some cases where an exact location is given, change of that exact location is permissible after the application has been granted. Regulation 17(c) and (d) amend paragraphs 31 and 32 of Schedule 2 to the 2013 Regulations to provide that, when an exact location, or a different exact location, is given after an application has been granted, that location also cannot be part of the same site as the premises of an existing provider of pharmaceutical services.\nRegulation 11 amends regulation 32 of the 2013 Regulations so that a designation of an area or premises under Part 13 of the Regulations – which is a potential preliminary for a tendering exercise for a contract to provide local pharmaceutical services – now acts as a ground for deferring all types of routine applications in the area, or for the premises, covered by the designation – not just some types of routine applications.\nApplications for entry on a pharmaceutical list may be deferred or refused on some specified grounds relating to the fitness of the potential provider of pharmaceutical services to be a provider of such services. Previously, the refusal and deferral provisions applied only to potential providers who were individuals or bodies corporate, but regulations 12 and 13 amend regulations 33 and 34 of the 2013 Regulations so that these refusal and deferral provisions now also apply to the partners in applications from partnerships. The changes to regulations 33 and 34 of the 2013 Regulations also correct drafting errors.\nRegulation 14 amends regulation 40 of the 2013 Regulations, which includes a rule requiring the refusal of applications for new pharmacies in certain rural areas for a period of five years, where dispensing services are provided in the relevant location by dispensing doctors, if an application for a pharmacy within 1.6 kilometres of the proposed new pharmacy has been refused in the previous five years. The changes prevent a new five year period being triggered within an existing five year period by an application for a new pharmacy that has to be refused because of the rule. It also requires the NHSCB to decline to apply the rule if it is satisfied that the pharmacy application was motivated wholly or partly by a desire for the application to be refused, thus triggering a five year bar on further applications.\nProviders of pharmaceutical services that provide certain types of specialist appliances may provide telephone care lines for users of the appliances during their normal opening hours. Regulations 18 and 19 amend provisions in Schedules 4 and 5 of the 2013 Regulations to provide that those providers must ensure that, during out of hours periods, if advice is not available to those users via those telephone lines, contact details are given via those telephone lines for alternative sources of NHS advice. Previously, contact details had to be given of NHS Direct National Health Service Trust, which is to be abolished.\nRegulations 9(a), 17(a) and (b) and 20 correct drafting errors in the 2013 Regulations.",
  "extent": null,
  "status": null,
  "version": "current",
  "annotations": [],
  "outstanding_effects": [],
  "provenance": {
    "source": "legislation.gov.uk",
    "source_url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/417/note",
    "retrieved_at": "2026-10-29T00:25:40.822611+00:00"
  },
  "licence": "Open Government Licence v3.0",
  "licence_url": "https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/",
  "attribution": "Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives."
}